Fair Wages Resolution

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 9:37 pm on 16 December 1982.

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Photo of Mr Michael Alison Mr Michael Alison , Barkston Ash 9:37, 16 December 1982

I am sorry, I have little time left. [Interruption.] The noise is affording me a useful opportunity to find a piece of paper.

The allegation has been repeatedly made—the last occasion was by the right hon. Member for Chesterfield—that we have not been doing what we should have done in terms of consultation. I do not understand why the TUC complains that we have not properly consulted it. If it had wanted more, it could have asked for that. We wrote to the TUC in March on another ILO matter—a draft White Paper on the Government attitude towards the ILO conventions and recommendations adopted by the ILO conference in 1981. Owing to a misunderstanding the TUC thought that it was not being consulted properly and it asked for a meeting.— [Interruption]—I hope that the right hon. Members for Chesterfield and for Doncaster will listen carefully to what I have to say.

The TUC asked for a meeting specifically to talk about an ILO recommendation and a convention. That meeting was willingly granted and the TUC came along. It was able to give me its views clearly. It was Bill Keys and one or two others who came to see me. I reported to the Secretary of State, who considered the representations that had been made to me. As a result, a small change was made in the White Paper relating to the subject that we discussed.

If the TUC had asked for a meeting to discuss the rescission of the fair wages resolution and the denunciation of ILO convention No. 94, it would have been willingly granted. However, Len Murray, when he wrote to ask for the meeting to which Bill Keys came to talk to me about the ILO, said in his letter that he hoped that the Government would talk to him at the same time about another matter which it was proposed to denounce, referring to the fair wages resolution motion.

When they came along to discuss the ILO Bill Keys concentrated entirely on the ILO's views on collective bargaining and did not bother to mention the fair wages resolution. However, that meeting took place, they said they wanted to talk about it, but did not do so. There could not have been a greater opportunity for consultation than when they came into the Department to speak to me. Quite apart from the letters that have flowed backwards and forwards, they had an opportunity to talk to us but they did not bother to do so. Therefore, I can unreservedly ask the House to support the motion for the abolition of the resolution and to resist the amendment.